Category Archives: Private Property

Trump’s Private Property Plunder Plan

Economy, Private Property, Taxation

The government has several ways to pay for its obligations, one of which is to seize private property in the form of taxes. Taxes are private property plundered. A tax cut for those who pay taxes is tantamount to a return of stolen goods.

With a tax cut, the plundering class simply agrees to pilfer less. The notion that you must “pay for tax cuts” is like a burglar promising to return the television he stole as soon as he is in a better financial position.

I get a headache from just reading Donald Trump’s plunder plan. Rand Paul’s taxation policy is the best in a bad bunch. Rand “has proposed a 14.5 percent flat-tax rate for all types of income.” Equality under the law? What a concept? A flat tax limits state theft. The idea would send the socialist pope in search of sackcloth and ashes.

Trump, on the other hand, has let the low-income cohort off the hook. “Individuals that make less than $25,000 (and $50,000 for married couples) would pay no income taxes under Trump’s plan.”(CNN)

BAD. All citizens should have a dog in this fight. Better to let the so-called poor set the flat-tax rate for all of us. It would be lower than Paul’s 14.5 percent.

Trump’s plan is progressive: the more private property you accrue, the greater the percentage of which you forfeit.

HORRIBLE.

Unspecified, too, at least in this WSJ article, is the burden Trump plans to place on those earning between $100,000 and $300,000.

A Bargain: Half A Billion Dollars To Train 4-5 Syrians

Middle East, Military, Private Property, The State

How corrupt and inept must you and your organization be to have spent half a billion dollars and to have produced only “4 or 5” trained people on the battlefield? The answer: As big as only the US government and military can be. You must also be a special can of stupid—statist stupid—to think that training hungry Arabs to do what you think they should be doing is anything but unethical (to them and to US taxpayers) and unworkable.

A US training program for Syrian rebels—oh, yes, US boots are on the Syrian ground; have been for a long time—was started back in May of this year. As is always the case with money not your own, for which you are not answerable—you squander it.

MSNBC:

Senate testimony of Centcom commander, General Lloyd Austin, that the U.S. plan to train thousands of Syrian opposition soldiers has cost half a billion dollars and results in “4 or 5” trained people on the battlefield.

“Not 4 divisions or 4 battalions or even 4 platoons,” mocked Rachel Maddow, “but 4, maybe 5 individuals.”

That’s government efficiency for you.

AND Libtards Complain About Scott Pruitt? UPDATED (7/5/2018): ‘The Lawless Green Police Unleash A Toxic River’

Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Government, Private Property, Regulation

This statement is immutably true: Were we unencumbered by the Environmental Protection Agency, “three million gallons of toxic slurry” would not now be flowing “down the rivers of the West,” “at a rate of 740 gallons a minute.” The sludge was released by “the E-men” into “a creek that is a tributary of the Animas River.” (WSJ)

The reason similar catastrophes are likely to reoccur courtesy of government is because these stooges of the state legislate themselves the kind of legal immunity denied to private companies.

Naturally, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980, known as the Superfund law, gives EPA clean-up crews immunity from the trial bar when they are negligent. Yet the Durango blowout was entirely avoidable.

For the same reason, these lethal idiots were disinclined to “warn state and local officials” for a full 24 hours. Locals “learned about the fiasco when they saw their river become yellow curry.”

And Americans want more government!

… The plume of lead, arsenic, mercury, copper, cadmium and other heavy metals turned the water a memorable shade of yellow-orange chrome. The sludge is so acidic that it stings upon touch. Colorado, New Mexico and the Navajo Indian reservation have declared states of emergency as the contamination empties into Lake Powell in Utah and the San Juan River in New Mexico.

The ecological ramifications are uncertain, though the San Juan is designated as “critical habitat” for the Colorado Pike Minnow and Razorback Sucker fish. The regional economy that depends on recreational tourism like rafting, kayaking and fly fishing has been damaged. Drinking water is potable only because utilities closed their intake gates, but pollution in the water table has deprived farmers and rural residents of a source for wells, livestock and crop irrigation. …

MORE.

UPDATE (7/5/2018):

Comments Off on AND Libtards Complain About Scott Pruitt? UPDATED (7/5/2018): ‘The Lawless Green Police Unleash A Toxic River’

Written by on

UPDATED: Disparate-Impact Doctrine: Doing Away With Due Process (Obama’s Race Database)

Constitution, Justice, Law, Private Property, The Courts

Is there any doubt the US Supreme Court is engaged in shameless social engineering, and now regularly exceeds its constitutional appellate jurisdiction? A scandalous example of this is Justice Anthony Kennedy’s swing vote in affirming the disparate-impact doctrine, thus doing away with due process (property rights have long since been sundered).

The Doctrine holds “that the law allows not only claims for intentional discrimination but also, claims that cover practices that have a discriminatory effect, even if they were not motivated by an intent to discriminate.” (CNN)

An example that comes to mind: A property owner (in name only) doesn’t want to sell a residential property in a quaint little town to a developer who’ll erect an apartment block on the small space, currently surrounded by family homes. The government decides that this would impede the ability of poorer minorities to move into this cute little hamlet, and sues the seller.

The SCOTUS Blog:

On June 25, 2015, the Supreme Court, by a five-to-four margin, upheld the application of disparate impact under the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) in Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. While upholding the theory, the Court imposed significant limitations on its application in practice. [Yeah, right!]

In a disparate-impact claim, a plaintiff may establish liability, without proof of intentional discrimination, if an identified business practice has a disproportionate effect on certain groups of individuals and if the practice is not grounded in sound business considerations. The Court, however, imposed important limitations on the application of the theory “to protect potential defendants against abusive disparate-impact claims.”

Is there any wonder Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch was so jubilant? She “released the following statement … after the Supreme Court ruling in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project Inc.:

“I am pleased that the Supreme Court has affirmed that the Fair Housing Act encompasses disparate impact claims, which are an essential tool for realizing the Act’s promise of fair and open access to housing opportunities for all Americans. While our nation has made tremendous progress since the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968, disparate impact claims remain an all-too-necessary mechanism for rooting out discrimination in housing and lending. By recognizing that laws, policies and practices with unjustified discriminatory effects are inconsistent with the Fair Housing Act, today’s decision lends support to hardworking Americans who are attempting to find good housing opportunities for themselves and their families. Bolstered by this important ruling, the Department of Justice will continue to vigorously enforce the Fair Housing Act with every tool at its disposal – including challenges based on unfair and unacceptable discriminatory effects.”

UPDATE (7/25): The link between the affirmation of the disparate-impact doctrine and Obama’s race database is obvious. Have race data will travel.

Paul Sperry:

… Unbeknown to most Americans, Obama’s racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school — all to document “inequalities” between minorities and whites.

This Orwellian-style stockpile of statistics includes a vast and permanent network of discrimination databases, which Obama already is using to make “disparate impact” cases against: banks that don’t make enough prime loans to minorities; schools that suspend too many blacks; cities that don’t offer enough Section 8 and other low-income housing for minorities; and employers who turn down African-Americans for jobs due to criminal backgrounds.

Big Brother Barack wants the databases operational before he leaves office, and much of the data in them will be posted online.

So civil-rights attorneys and urban activist groups will be able to exploit them to show patterns of “racial disparities” and “segregation,” even if no other evidence of discrimination exists.

MORE.